MARGAO
The delay in holding elections to the municipal bodies before the expiry of the current term on November 4 has thrown up a host of questions for the government.
With less than a month to go for the five-year term of the current municipal bodies to end, it’s now clear there cannot be a new set of elected representatives to rule the councils for want of an election in view of the Covid-19 pandemic.
What, however, remains unclear is how will the government go about the emerging situation when the current tenure of the civic bodies ends on November 4, throwing up questions whether the municipal bodies will be ruled by government-appointed administrators or whether the government will go in for the status-quo, wherein the chairpersons continue in office till the election of his or her successor.
Given the situation, officials of the Department of Municipal Administration are believed to have put the ball in the government’s court on how to go about the matter.
Sources in the know say the officials have placed before the government aspects of the emerging situation, after considering the provisions of the Goa Municipalities Act and court judgments.
The Goan understands that the Urban Development Ministry had sought legal opinion from the Law department on how to go about after November 4 when the five-year tenure of the local bodies comes to an end.
Take note, the Law department has given its opinion on the matter, but sources in the know informed that since the legal opinion has interpreted the Goa Municipalities Act and other election rules from various viewpoints, the matter has been placed before the government to take a call on how to go about after November 4.
Incidentally, the Department of Urban Development is also in the process of verifying claims made in certain quarters whether there was any High Court judgement pronounced around two decades ago, in favour of incumbent municipal chairpersons holding the reins of office till the election of the new body.
With reports doing rounds in certain quarters that the High Court order had barred the appointment of government-appointed administrators for civic bodies after the expiry of the five-year term, Urban Development officials, sources said, have been frantically trying to lay their hands on the order, if any.
So far, a copy of the HC order has eluded officials of the municipal administration.
“Many people speak about this order, but we cannot lay our hands on it. People say the High Court order had ruled out the appointment of government officers as administrators of the civic bodies till an elected body is put in place. We, however, have till date not laid our hands on his order,” a senior official told The Goan.
